Dan Waldrip had been in pain, on and off, for 18 years. He was a healthy 27-year-old when he woke up the morning after mowing his lawn with his back throbbing so intensely he couldn’t get out of bed. Afterward he suffered intermittently, feeling fine for weeks and then experiencing days of stabbing pain or dull aches.
Over the years, Waldrip spent thousands of dollars on chiropractic procedures, acupuncture, physical therapy, pain medications, and numerous other treatments. Once, during a business trip to South Africa, desperation drove him to hire an energy healer at an outdoor market. When nothing worked, Waldrip accepted that his “tricky back” would always impact his life.
“If I was walking along and dropped something, I would panic that bending over might make my injury worse,” says Waldrip, who is now a 49-year-old private equity manager in Louisville, Colorado.